What They Said: February 2008

Two IUP students plan to raise money for cancer research this summer by biking from IUP to Anchorage.

—WPXI-TV (Pittsburgh, Pa.),
Feb. 25, 2008, noon.

Two ambitious university students, 4,500 miles, 11 states and a part of Canada could equal money for cancer research. Twenty-year-old Daniel Esten and 23-year-old Michael Frederick, both students at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, plan to bike this summer from western Pennsylvania to Anchorage, Alaska. Funds they raise for the expedition from businesses, family and friends will be donated to the American Cancer Society. The journey is to begin in June and end in August. Currently, the duo are taking extensive bike rides and following a daily workout regimen for what promises to be an arduous journey of 70-mile bike rides each day. The summer trek will include climbing mountains with elevations as high as 9,200 feet.

—Associated Press, Feb. 25, 2008

It’s going to take a whole lot of training, but two IUP students are confident that they’ll be able to do it. The two are planning to bike from Indiana to Anchorage, Alaska, this summer. Take a look at this map.

—WTAE-TV (Pittsburgh, Pa.)
Feb. 25, 2008, 7:00 a.m., 8:00 a.m.

It’s going to tale a whole lot of training, but two IUP students are confident that they’ll be able to do it. The two are planning to bike from Indiana to Anchorage, Alaska, this summer. They want to raise money for the American Cancer Society. The 4,500 mile track through 11 different states and part of Canada will take them three months, they’re estimating, to complete. 23-year-old Daniel Esten and Michael Frederick will have to climb mountains as high as 2,200 feet. It makes me tired just thinking about it. Tough for me to bike around the block, let alone to Alaska. Good job for those guys.

—WTAE-TV (Pittsburgh, Pa.),
Feb. 25, 2008, 5:30 a.m.

And the good news doesn’t stop there. Two ambitious University students, forty-five hundred miles, 11 states and a part of Canada research. Twenty-year-old Daniel Esten and 23-year old Michael Frederick, both students at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, plan to bike this summer from western Pennsylvania to Anchorage, Alaska. The money they raise for the trip from businesses, family and friends will be donated to the American Cancer Society. The two are set to start their trek in June and end in August.

—WTAJ-TV (Altoona-Johnstown, Pa.)
Feb. 24, 2008; Feb. 25, 2008

Winners of the political essay competition organised by the Justice Foundation Kashmir Centre were named on Tuesday. The essay competition titled ‘How could Kashmir, the oldest unresolved dispute, be settled’ was arranged at the international level among the graduate and post-graduate students. The Foundation received many articles in this respect world wide including those from both sides of the divided Kashmir, Great Britain and the United States of America and the competition was tight. According to Prof. Nazir Ahmad Shawl, Executive Director, JFKC, apart from the top winner, two essays tied for the second place while none qualified for the third prize. The competition was judged independently by Brian Cox, Senior Vice President, ICRD (International Centre for Religion and Diplomacy) in the United States who evaluated the essays and his decision was final. The winner was Mahboob-ul-Haq Makhdoomi of Indiana University, Pennsylvania, while Himanshu Goenka of London School of Oriential and African Studies and Tawseef Kashoo of University of Kashmir, Srinanagar were adjudged the second best.

—Pakistan Associated Press, Feb. 19, 2008

For the third time in a year, Western Pennsylvania will be treated to a total lunar eclipse. It will be the last time the region will see the moon totally enveloped by Earth’s shadow for almost three years. ‘Even if it is cloudy, a lunar eclipse takes several hours,’ said Ken Coles, a professor of geoscience at Indiana University of Pennsylvania who will give a free program about the eclipse Tuesday at the school’s planetarium. ‘All we need is an occasional hole in the clouds to see it.’

Many Pittsburgh area universities also have similar emergency plans and alert systems in place. ... Point Park University, Robert Morris University, Duquesne University and Indiana University of Pennsylvania all have electronic alert systems in place.

—KDKA-TV (Pittsburgh, Pa.), Feb. 15, 2008

MICHAEL BARTLEY, ON-Q HOST: And welcome to On-Q, I’m Michael Bartley. Tonight, our celebration of Black History Month takes us to Indiana County. Before the Civil War Indiana County was a well-known stop on the Underground Railroad: a safe haven for runaway slaves. Today, the county continues to make history with the Two-Thousand Five appointment of the first African-American President at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, better known around these parts as I-U-P. Tonight, On-Q contributor Dave Crawley reports on the past and the present of this local community that continues to break down barriers.

DAVE CRAWLEY: One-hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation the struggle for freedom continued. Inexorably African-Americans began to share the ‘American Dream.’ At Indiana University of Pennsylvania…

DR TONY ATWATER, PRESIDENT - INDIANA UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA: When I came here, I knew that IUP was a very fine institution.

DAVE CRAWLEY: Doctor Tony Atwater took the reigns of power in February of Two-Thousand Five. He is the first African-American president of Pennsylvania’s largest state-owned university.

DOCTOR TONY ATWATER: It is an awesome responsibility and I always focus my attentions on the student.

DAVE CRAWLEY: With fourteen-thousand students that’s no easy task.

DOCTOR TONY ATWATER: You’ve been here a while, what do you like about the place? (laughs)

UNIDENTIFIED IUP STUDENT: Well, I like the diversity and I like the community.

UNIDENTIFIED IUP STUDENT #2: Yeah. I like the university and I like different people. I think IUP provides a lot of that.

DAVE CRAWLEY: Diversity is a word that resonates on a campus where African-American enrollment has risen dramatically in recent years and so has the graduation rate for students of all races.

DOCTOR TONY ATWATER: Our retention over the last four academic years has been on the increase.

DAVE CRAWLEY: Did the young Tony Atwater dare to dream that he would one day preside over a university faculty? He was a child of the South, born in Nashville, Tennessee.

DOCTOR TONY ATWATER: I think the Civil-Rights Movement opened up the doors of opportunity to show how African-Americans could succeed and that we have so many success stories.

DAVE CRAWLEY: He and his twin brother were the sons of an Air Force man encountering a range of ethnic groups in schools from Germany to Okinawa to Bangor, Maine, always with one common denominator.

DOCTOR TONY ATWATER: Because we were one of only a couple of students among twenty-five who were African-Americans that that challenged us to to do our best and to also be able to participate fully in the classroom environment.

DAVE CRAWLEY: The University President earned his Ph.D. in Communications Research at Michigan State, but for Doctor Atwater communication really began at home.

DOCTOR TONY ATWATER: My parents gave me some very, very good grounding, and the military experience gave me very good grounding to appreciate the notion that I could do anything that I could put my mind to, and that race was not a barrier but it was something to take pride in and to work hard to achieve goals and consequently you could achieve anything in life.

DAVE CRAWLEY: He and his wife, Beverly—a medical doctor, are pioneers in a town which has known many over the years.

DOCTOR TONY ATWATER: This region has an amazing connection with the Underground Railroad.

DOCTOR TONY ATWATER: We have a slogan here at IUP called ‘Beyond Expectations.’

DAVE CRAWLEY: Meeting those expectations and more in Indiana County. I’m Dave Crawley for On-Q.

—On-Q Magazine,
WQED-TV (Pittsburgh, Pa.), Feb. 14, 2008

Dr. Miriam Chaiken of Penn Run, Indiana County, will compete in a new Food Network show, ‘The Ultimate Recipe Showdown.’ The six-week-long show, hosted by ‘Unwrapped’ star Marc Summers, will premiere on Sunday. Ms. Chaiken, who teaches the anthropology of food at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, entered her recipe for African Ground Nut Stew and was selected to compete in the chicken category against eight challengers. There are also categories for burgers, comfort foods, pasta, cakes and cookies. The winner in each category every week takes home $25,000 and gets the chance to have his or her recipe featured at T.G.I. Friday restaurants nationwide. She says her recipe was inspired by her years of living in Africa with her husband, also an anthropologist.

—“Author Makes a Sport Out of Playing With Your Food,”Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Feb. 14, 2008

PUNXSUTAWNEY -- The metamorphosis of the Fairman Center from an empty building to a bustling education hub took another — albiet small — step Monday night after Borough Council approved IUP’s request for 22 parking spaces in the lot behind the building. Bob Davies, of IUP, spoke before council about the matter, which Council passed unanimously after some discussion. Council member Roger Steele was initially reluctant ‘at best’ to allot 22 downtown parking spaces to IUP. Larry Chenoga brought up the Presbyterian Church that uses that lot and asked if IUP would be willing to work with them when the church needs those spaces. ‘We’re good neighbors,’ Davies said. ‘We’ll be very cooperative in that realm.’ IUP plans to improve the parking spaces it is responsible for, but that sprucing up might spread to the whole lot. Steele suggested improving the entire parking lot at the same time, which Davies said was not out of the question. ‘I think it’s a reasonable request,’ Davies said. The motion was passed unanimously by Council. Steele spoke a little bit on how well the IUP Culinary School has done in Punxsutawney. He recalled when they would speak to people about it before it was established, they would say, ‘Are you guys nuts? Culinary Arts in Punxsy?’ ‘We really want to thank you for the opportunity,’ Davies said. ‘We have a good partnership between Punxsutawney and IUP and we are ever so grateful.’

About two years ago, Amiee was one of three children with serious medical conditions who previously were granted wishes by the Make-A-Wish Foundation and were featured as models in a show staged as a senior project by fashion students at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Appropriately, when choosing an outfit for the IUP show, Amiee ‘asked for something pink and princessy,’ her mother said. The IUP students responded by stitching together an original design that featured a satin underlay and heavy glitter and was topped with a tiara. Prior to debuting her dress, Amiee also underwent a complete makeup and hairstyling session.

At Indiana University of Pennsylvania, you can view a piece of the destroyed World Trade Center. Biology students there recently had a herd of live emus and rheas — another ostrich-like bird — to study. About a week ago, faculty members in the geoscience department unpacked a haul valued at more than $82,000. It included a shark jaw replica, triceratops parts, an Argentine meteorite and a 2-ton petrified log. All came from the creative hearts of university donors. ... On the surface, when a university gets dinosaur bones, it’s like, ‘What are you going to do with that?’ said Robert O. Davies, vice president for university relations and executive director of the Foundation for IUP. ‘Sometimes you get these quirky gifts, but when you investigate them out or go through them a little bit, they’re very important to the faculty and the students who they’re being given for.’ IUP housed its emus and rheas on a faculty member’s farm in a shelter built with donated materials. The World Trade Center remnant is set up as a memorial in front of the main administration building at the edge of Oak Grove. The chair of the Geoscience Department plans to use the recent fossil donation in classroom activities. Davies is searching for one thing, though. An alumnus e-mailed him recently to ask about a life-sized truck carved out of wood and donated in the 1960s. Davies has yet to find it, or even confirm its existence. ‘I don’t know what to do with that to be honest,’ Davies said. ‘On one hand, I hope we don’t find it.’

Indiana University of Pennsylvania student Kalena Popson, of Erie, found out, first hand, what it’s like to be homeless. Popson, a freshman at IUP enrolled in a special first-year experience course, was part of a project to experience homelessness. She was one of 60 students who set up a make-shift tent city on campus Nov. 28 through 30 and spent part of a three-day period sleeping, studying and eating outdoors. The simulation was part of course’s final examination, and was designed to give students some perspective of what it feels like to be a homeless person in western Pennsylvania in late November. Popson, daughter of Gary and Charlene Popson of Pepperwood Circle, is a 2007 graduate of McDowell High School.